Haas approves. Santa Clara County, which had not until that point belonged to either team, becomes part of the Giants’ domain.

1990 – Santa Clara County measure goes down to defeat.

1992 – San Jose votes down another utility tax plan to fund its own ballpark.

At no point did the Commissioner or League Presidents have to intervene or rule on behalf of either team.

Magowan/Neukom/Baer-vs.-Wolff:

The Giants have SF, San Mateo, Marin, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Santa Clara Counties as their defined territory. The A’s have Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.

2009 – After striking out in Fremont, Wolff looks to San Jose. Giants object. Commissioner Selig convenes three-man panel to study issue. A’s are not allowed to make an official stadium deal (including referendum) with San Jose until T-rights issue is resolved.

…wait through rest of 2009…

…wait through 2010…

…wait through 2011…

Giants astroturf group Stand for San Jose sues City of San Jose over preliminary land deal terms for ballpark.

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58 thoughts on “The difference between 1990 and 2012”

You know what the big difference is… the owners back in 1990 were businessmen but they were also gentlemen and the commissioner was an impartial party who only intervened when needed. The owners today are businessmen only and the commissioner is an businessman (owner) install referee bureaucrat who inserts himself into every little facet of the game.

No, the difference is that in 1990 the A’s were not asked to give up any part of their territory. More importantly, they clearly stood to benefit from having the Giants move to SJ. So at the time it was a win-win for everyone involved.
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Compensation has been the core problem of the current debate. The A’s have not figured out how to make this deal a clear win for both Clubs, and until that happens there is no reason for MLB to change territorial rights.

@Simon94022 – It’s not the A’s job to define compensation. Nor is it the Giants’. It’s the Commissioner’s responsibility to make that determination. As I understand it, Wolff has said internally that he’s willing to compensate the Giants based on actual, measurable losses incurred due to the A’s move. Is that fair?

Simon – It isn’tt the A’s that need to figure out how to make a a win for all the parties, it’s MLB itself. There stands to be a lot of reason to change territorial rights: dead…er small market team in a big market area, continued revenue sharing for the a’s, declining franchise value, etc.

@Simon – To my knowledge, the Giant’s have never put a dollar amount out there. Their stance from the start has been that the rights are not for sale. The only way they see themselves winning is if the A’s remain in Oakland, or pack up and leave town.

ML, of course it is up to the A’s to come up with something. The Commissioner can broker a deal, but he is not going to impose one that infuriates the Giants.
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“Actual, measurable losses” sounds good until you realize there is no objective measurement. That means compensation is the delta between actual Giants revenue and the revenue they would have had but for the A’s presence in San Jose. By definition this is speculative and dependent on a thousand assumptions. It is not going to fly.
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The hard truth is that the A’s need to change the status quo. The only way to achieve that will be to make the other parties involved see that a change is consistent with their own self-interest.

@Simon94022 – If the argument is based on losing fans, sponsors, revenue – then it can be measured and isolated. These teams know everything about their constituent customers. If you can’t measure it, what are you arguing?

It’s not up to the A’s. MLB franchises cannot bargain with their fellow franchises on such matters. Selig doesn’t want to infuriate the Giants, but the Giants have shown no sign that they will entertain any offers. Right now they are doing the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and going LA LA LA LA LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU which is why this is taking so damn long. So in that way, Bud will have to at some point infuriate the Giants, even if it is by offering a very generous compensation package that completely covers any possible loss of franchise value and then some. This is because the Giants won’t negotiate in good faith, as they don’t want to be fairly compensated for the move’ they want the A’s GONE.

ML, It is going to be pretty difficult to measure the economic impact of the A’s move because the shouldn’t just consider losses that will occur in the first few years after the move but also the potential impact 10 or 20 years down the road.

FC, that is my understanding as well. The Giants stance seems to be that the rights are virtually priceless.

@Ted – There are any number of ways to make projections on the population, demographics, and potential revenue-generating capability of the South Bay 10, 20 years into the future. That said, why should the A’s have to compensate the Giants in perpetuity? The Giants’ main argument until yesterday was that they have this mortgage burden. They chose that argument. It stands to reason that once that mortgage is over, all bets are off. After all, the Giants have been poaching fans from the East Bay ever since AT&T Park opened, while the Coliseum turned into a monstrosity. The A’s aren’t asking for compensation for that.

The Orioles and Astros situations are fundamentally different, because in those cases the other owners benefitted directly from the change that affected the one team. Particularly in the Washington situation, which gave each of the other teams a financial windfall.
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Here the other 28 clubs have nothing to gain from changing the t rights except removal of the A’s from the revenue sharing dole. But that will be offset in part by whatever reduction of the Giants’ contribution results. More to the point, the A’s revenue sharing drain is not significant enough to impact the other Clubs individually. It hasn’t been enough to make them act till now, and as we saw in Montreal’s case it was not enough to make them move against Angelos until DC improved its stadium deal to 100 percent public financing.

10 to 20 @#$%& years into the future? Are you serious? So lets see: its OK for the giants to poach fans from the affluent east bay, but its not OK for the A’s to potentially do the same in the south bay? Giants debt payments sunset in 2017, and their primary “reason” for holding onto SCCO will be history. After that, the ENTIRE Bay Area should (or will) be free game for both franchises. Game on!

Simon,
By your logic, I have nothing to gain by winning Super Lotto. How could you even attempt to downplay the revenue sharing angle as if it was “nothing.” Good grief brah! Very thankful that you’re not running MLB.

ML, the A’s are responsible for the situation they are in just like the Giants are. I am not sure why the Giants wouldn’t argue the possible damage an A;s move to San Jose would bring down the road through loss of corporate sponsors and future baseball fans.

Tony, The Giants didn’t build a stadium in the East Bay, they wouldn’t have been allowed to because that is A’s territory. The A’s have always been allowed to “poach fans” from the South Bay (evidently Anon is one of those fans) just like the Giants can draw fans from the East Bay. I am not sure why the stadium mortgage is their primary reason for keeping their territorial rights, they had those rights for years prior to the stadium being built.

@Simon94022 – It’s not fundamentally different. Jim Crane’s “windfall” was a discount off a heavily overinflated franchise purchase price. He’s not seeing any cash. Peter Angelos got money to start a network and a guarantee on a franchise sale price that was eclipsed long ago. First the Giants were arguing that they needed to protect their mortgage payment, which is an easily defeated argument based on the revenue they’ve received over the last decade. Now you’re saying that the Giants won’t be able to pay into revenue sharing? Based on what? If they’re being compensated based on a reasonable revenue baseline, there should be no effect on their total annual revenue.

The next CBA will have far more dissent than in past negotiations because of the widening revenue gulfs from TV contracts, and in a few cases, venues. Selig’s admission that the A’s are on the front burner is an indicator that he wants to take it head-on, even if it’ s likely that he’ll be retired before the current CBA expires. More and more I’m seeing this argument that inertia = can’t happen. That’s lazy. Nobody said this would be easy. In the end it’s crunching numbers, not rocket science.

ML, I have never said the Giants would get a CASH payment. But it is time to get creative about the compensation package. Wolff and Fischer are extremely wealthy men who will reap a financial windfall if given access to Santa Clara County — that’s why they are pursuing this.
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But instead of treating it like a complex business deal they are issuing press releases that whine about fairness. I understand how that appeals to fans. But it does not appeal to their fellow billionaires who own the other Clubs. Winning this requires appealing to the financial self-interest of those Clubs, including the Giants. The strategy the A’s seem to have turned to this week is one you adopt when you are losing and are frustrated. They need to change that strategy right now.

@Ted – The A’s could argue that they’re giving the Giants unfettered access to the entire North Bay, while the Giant fans’ access to SF remains the same. Sponsors are a more difficult sell, but as with everything monetary, it can be negotiated. In the future, a greater percentage revenue will be media-related. The Giants just re-upped with KNBR through 2018 and have a lucrative revenue-sharing deal with Comcast that will only rise in the future, regardless of where the A’s play. Regarding the “mortgage” argument, that’s a rhetorical corner that the Giants painted themselves into. If they keep changing the rationale for protecting Santa Clara County, it’s not going to do them any favors if someone decides to bring an anti-trust case against the Giants and MLB.

@Simon94022 – Look, I mentioned in the last post that the A’s PR machine is not exactly the equivalent of the Giants’. Yet they put out one press release about the issue in three years. Whatever anyone wants to think about who won or lost the battle this week, the A’s – whether it was intentional or not – got the issue in the media and it had huge coverage nationally. It’s not something they can do regularly. But it most assuredly got people talking again, and absent any actual progress that we have no way of measuring as outsiders, it’s not a bad move.

“As I understand it, Wolff has said internally that he’s willing to compensate the Giants based on actual, measurable losses incurred due to the A’s move. Is that fair?”
Yeah, right, expert witnesses disagree on issues like that all the time. Mediators resolve such disputes. The problem is that Wolff and Fisher are not offering enough. It’s that simple. Haas made a bad deal in 1990, banking on north Bay dominance if the Giants moved. Why the Giants had all the coastal counties and the A’s only had Alameda and CoCo is still a mysterey, but it looks like another dumb A’s business deal to me. Quit whining. Wolff and Fisher need to make the deal. It’s that simple.

@xootsuit – Okay, what is “the deal” then? Wolff & Fisher didn’t get to where they are in terms of wealth by bidding against themselves. The Giants need to stop hiding, name a price, then the bargaining can begin.

But ML, that’s the whole problem: the Giants DON’T need to quit hiding and name a price. The status quo is great for them. The A’s are the ones who need to come up with some creative ideas that they can take to Bud. If Bud agrees that the A’s offers are a reasonable basis for negotiations, he will broker a deal.
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If the A’s are waiting for the Giants to name a price, or for Selig to proactively intervene and impose a settlement, it’s going to be a long, long wait.

I agree that the Giants feel — if their public statements are to be believed which plenty of them shouldn’t be — the status quo is fine. They can simply sit there with a terse ‘SCC is ours. End of conversation” and move on. But if that is the case, why don’t they do that? Why the subterfuge with the recent NY story/political gamesmanship? Why bring attention to the subject when the Giants want the subject forgotten about to maintain the status quo? Why get the media machine kicked into gear echoing the NY story subterfuge? Further reason to keep quiet, IMHO, the Giants lose a little bit of the argument every time they open their mouths. From their phony Stand for SJ group — to egregiously rewriting history to suit their argument — to the general point of keeping a city from having a baseball franchise (most people don’t know or don’t care about the AE – they will see it as a patently unfair move by Giants execs)……every time they open their mouths they look slightly worse. Which again leads me to why would they fuel the media fire on a subject they want to go away and simply maintain the status quo?
IMHO, the Giants and A’s behavior makes me believe they both — as the SJ merc pointed out — are concerned with how this thing is going. Further, I suspect the gamesmanship is also about jockeying for position just in case negotiations start up.

Don’t know if this has been posted already, but here is Bruce Jenkins take:

“What I’d like to see: The Giants get absolutely crushed. Territorial rights removed, and not a cent in financial compensation. The A’s should be in San Jose. The Giants won’t lose South Bay fans who have devoted years of passion to the team. And they’ll always own the Bay Area, so the corporate-sponsorship hits won’t sink the ship. Crushed, I say. Bully-style arrogance is so unbecoming.”

One thing that’s unfortunate is Bay Area sports writers are so ignorant of economics that they they think waving the Giants flag in this matter is going to result in the A’s staying in Oakland rather than the A’s leaving altogether. If San Jose doesn’t happen, MLB takes over the team and keeps it in Oakland on a year-to-year lease until investors from some other city take the team away. Oakland has made it clear it expects a free ballpark – conditions no one will meet..

@Simon-
Status quo is good for the Giants but bad for most other teams as the A’s continue to take revenue sharing money and keep winning enough games to annoy those teams that pay into revenue sharing. With A’s mandatory weaning off revenue sharing written into the new CBA, you’re looking at an Expos-scenario where the other owners will have to buy the team from Wolff and keep losing money until a new home is found. The C-word risks triggering a long war with labor. Therefore, the Giants need to play ball or the rest of the league will grow tired of their intransigence and then you’ll see them get run roughshod.

And there is no chance the Giants don’t keep contributing to the revenue sharing pool even with the A’s in SJ. I’m sure the blue ribbon panel has come to that same conclusion. Therefore, your scenario of two Bay Area teams on welfare is laughable, and could only have come from the perverted minds of Giants ownership and their KNBR puppets.

@martin – I haven’t gone to the trouble of making those calculations. However, I did take a map of population density and drew 20-mile radius circles around AT&T Park, the Oakland Coliseum, and the Cisco Field site in San Jose. You may notice something important about it.

“I’m sure the blue ribbon panel has come to that same conclusion. Therefore, your scenario of two Bay Area teams on welfare is laughable, and could only have come from the perverted minds of Giants ownership and their KNBR puppets.”
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@Al, well thanks for the measured and thoughtful response! :)
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For the record, I never suggested there would be two Bay Area teams on welfare, or that the Giants would cease to be net contributors to revenue sharing. The point is simply that the revenue-sharing issue by itself is not enough to motivate the other owners to demand immediate resolution of the territorial problem. This should be a pretty uncontroversial observation, when you consider that:
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(1) the owners have already allowed the A’s situation to drag on for years and there is no sign that they are clamoring for Bud to resolve this quickly.
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(2) the Giants will argue — and whether you or I agree or not, many of their fellow owners will share this belief — that their revenues will be impacted by the A’s in San Jose, thus reducing the level of their contribution and making the NET revenue sharing impact of the A’s relocation less significant.
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(3) MLB was willing to suck up losses in Montreal that were worse than what they are now dealing with in Oakland. Even when Washington, D.C. offered free land and public financing of 2/3 of the costs of a ballpark, the commissioner’s office didn’t return the Mayor’s calls or answer his letters. They did not take simply take the best deal on the table to stop the Expos revenue bleeding.
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By the way, as Lew Wolff keeps point out, there is no “blue ribbon panel.” It is just a committee. Mainly it is a vehicle for Selig to deflect questions on this subject by saying that “we are studying it.” The ultimate decision here will be made by the commissioner in consultation with the owners themselves. These guys do not defer decisions that impact the value of their businesses to committees of lawyers or longtime front office execs.
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At least that is what the perverted minds of Giants ownership and their KNBR puppets told me to say. ;)

San Jose is full of green and gold! jk. To state the obvious- the total of the Bay Area if covered far better with the A’s in SJ. The Giants may actually do better in the long run with the A’s in SJ. SJ almost looks like a separate market.

Simon,
Simply put, your defense of the Giants position is pathetic. We get it! You don’t want to see the A’s in San Jose! That’s your right to feel that way! But repeating the same garbage over and over again, seeing the world purely in black and white while trying to portray the giant’s position as legit is downright sickening. But like I said before, I guess that’s all the Oakland-only crowd has left now is to jump all over the Giants nuts. Pathetic!

Well said by Bruce Jenkins.
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In following this issue over the last year and half or so, I’ve come to rediscover one of the major reasons I became more of an A’s fan than a Giants fan. The fans.
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Even many years ago, growing up, I could see and feel and experience a totally different attitude and atmosphere at A’s games, and with talking to A’s fans, as opposed to going to Giants games and talking to Giants fans.
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In short, the A’s fans seemed entirely much more friendly, pleasant, fun, and knowledgeable about baseball. My experience with Giants fans was that they were snarky, snobbish, unfriendly, whiny spoiled brats. Of course this is a very broad generalization. There are great people and bad apples on both sides. But in my experience, there were always more of the “great people” on the A’s side. And I didn’t come to that opinion with any preconceived notions, it just evolved over the years due to experience.
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And when I follow this issue in the media, in this blog, and elsewhere, I see some Giants fans posting reasonably, and not having any ill will to the A’s, and generally wanting to be fair. But I’m seeing waaay to much snarky, whiny, arrogant, spoiled brat behavior on the part of the Giants fans, just like their team. It’s an attitude of “I got mine, and screw you if you want your fair share, so just go away”.
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In short, too many Giants fans are, quite frankly, a bunch of ignorant jerks.
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The situation is sort of a metaphor for real life. For me, I’ve never considered my own success to be dependent on the failures or struggles or disadvantages of others. I believe in my own ability to succeed no matter how strong or healthy the competition is. I’ve never wanted any unfair advantages over anyone else, because I can succeed on my own abilities and work ethic and positive attitude, regardless of what anyone else does.
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But with the Giants, and many of their fans, they believe they can only be successful if the A’s remained crippled and consigned to much smaller portion of the overall market. Even if I weren’t an A’s fan, and a non-partial regarding the T-rights issue, I would look at the Giants as a bunch of whiny, lazy, incompetent, pathetic losers.

Speaking of the Jenkins piece, it seems that slowly but surely, the Bay Area media is going the way of pushing for San Jose. Jenkins has been amazingly critical of all the A’s have done, and very tough on the ownership for a time now. For him in essence to now say he is agreeing with the A’s stance is pretty huge IMHO. I don’t think Poole will ever come around, considering he continues to trot out the same stuff, and is still in Haas denial.
Jeff, I would agree. I think the Giants came out looking the worse for wear this week. I think more people, even Giants fans, are starting to agree with your last sentence.
And by the way, Wolff and Fischer knew about TR’s when they bought the A’s. I get that. But didn’t Magowan know that they could be overturned when his group bought the Giants? Shouldn’t the argument cancel out?

Quite frankly, I shouldn’t generalize about fans.
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I come from a family of mostly Giants fans.
My brother, who is a 5th grade teacher, posted on Facebook this morning about sports spirit day at his school today, and how he was going to wear his Giants gear.
I posted back that he should wear his Rivercats, Kings, or 49ers gear, because the Giants are evil (with a winky to indicate I was mostly ribbing).
But then, I shortly afterwords deleted my comment, because I should not let my hatred of the Giants and the frustration I’m experiencing with the Trights situation put a damper on my brother’s fun day, even though I was just kidding around. My brother is a great guy.
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Just because I really like the A’s, I shouldn’t let the Giants greed, MLB’s complacency and incompetence, consume me and take it out on others. After all, there are plenty of other sports I follow (Earthquakes, Rivercats, Kings, EPL, etc), and at the very least Billy Beane always keeps the A’s interesting. That’s one advantage us A’s fans enjoy over the Giants – our GM is way smarter than the Giants GM (Sabean, what an idiot).
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Anyway, I’ve decided to take a big chill pill. My feelings on the matter are the same (A’s to SJ, MLB should open it up asap, and G’s should just shut up and play baseball). But getting consumed with hate is never a good thing.
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ML, I really appreciate your very well reasoned and very informative blog.

@davebaby
You make an excellent point. After this week, the court of public opinion is swaying the A’s way. The Jenkins turnabout is a big indicator. And the more the Giants open their mouths, the worse they look.
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I still pretty much believe that Bud will broker a deal, get the vote, make a decree, whatever, and the A’s will be allowed to SJ. It’s just taking sooooo long! ;-)

Yes, the Giants claiming San Jose as their “territory” doesn’t make them look good. Now, we need for the A’s to state why Oakland is not economically viable for a privately built ballpark, instead of hearing all the cries of “the A’s belong in Oakland” that ignore the team’s 4+decades-long record of mostly abysmal attendance there.

I do think the PR battle is meaningful. It’s true this will ultimately decided by Bud and the other owners on a dollars-and-cents basis. Public opinion may or may not influence those owners directly, but could factor into what happens in a number of other ways. SVLG could put pressure on the Giants. A public official could see a political opportunity, and start rattling sabres about the AE. Or the Giants might perceive that the fact they are trying to totally hose the City of San Jose is bad for their efforts to market to the South Bay.

It’d be neat to see the season ticket sales between the two teams since 1990. BTW, the Coliseum’s new Season Ticket Holder Entrance is awkward. A private entrance just for season ticket holders for avoid (sigh) the lines. If you’re arriving via BART, you’re walking around the outside of the Coliseum to get there. Out of curiosity, who here is a season ticket holder? I’m not. You’d except a year-round active A’s blog of obsessive fans to have a fair share of season ticket holders.

I am a season ticket holder, however, if I bring a friend with me to sit in my seats, it looks like they don’t qualify to enter in that gate because they aren’t ‘credentialed.’ My wife is due with our second baby at the beginning of May, and I know I’m going to be bringing other family members to games. So really, it doesn’t seem like this is a big deal, both with the restrictions and also the fact that lines aren’t bad anyway. Kudos for trying though.

@LS. Congrats on baby #2. The availability of A’s tickets for most games has always been one of my favorite things about the Coliseum/A’s. If a group/family decided to go to a game, they could do so affordably. (inb4 someone says that’s why the A’s are poor).

Of course, what the rules are on paper and how the rules are enforced are not always the same. Lots of times rule-setters make them more restricted to save their butts later in case people try to take advantage of them, but in practice they will probably be more lenient.

@Briggs: Thanks! Looking forward to bringing her to her first game. My son’s first two games were at 6 weeks old, on back-to-back days. Oakland at night, and Sacramento the next afternoon. Gonna try to get this one to the games no later than 6 weeks. :)

This whole issue about the Giants so-called territorial rights is ridiculous ! As a long time resident of Santa Clara whose father owned the only newspaper in town, I can’t understand why all the local media have neglected to mention that Santa Clara residents voted to help finance the Giants ballpark with a utility tax. Santa Clara was the only Bay Area city to agree to financially support the Giants and sell them a large parcel of land at a small fraction of its value. The vote in San Jose was close but failed, nevertheless Santa Clara, a city of approximately 120,000, passed the tax measure which in time would have helped the Giants immensely. Since it’s my understanding that the A’s only gave up their rights to the South Bay on the premise that the Giants would move to Santa Clara and the Giants turned down Santa Clara’s generous offer, the so-called t-rights should be null and void . Please don’t leave important facts like this out of your media coverage. If you don’t have the answers, please do the research. Thank You!